Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Captive Prince

Ain't it for me chief. I'm fine with an amount of consent issues in my guilty pleasure romantasy but there are deeper problems here. Some genuine (tw)

rape, pedophilia, and public sex without consent

. I like the different cultures, different skills setup and I can see that this is going to a place with an interesting relationship, but the story was in no way wrapped up in the first book and the lads didn't even get to bone. I didn't get any of the answers to my theories. Uncool. And something about the romance being between someone and the man who

deliberately had them nearly publicly raped and then flogged TO DEATH and did both with satisfaction

? I don't really care what the cultural norms are, I really struggle to believe that love's coming out of that idk. By almost halfway through the book I was still wondering if I'd misunderstood and the main character was supposed to be with someone else.

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frantic_vampire's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Well, I think I found a new bookish obsession! This was so good and I just couldn’t put it down. But it was also really, really fucked up. And yet, I loved every minute of it.

I loved that Damen is our pov character. He’s not shy with his opinions and he’s willing to risk his neck for the injustices he sees happening around him. And I love him for that, even when it leads to worse things for himself. I also love that he’s so against Laurent right now, it’s really building a true enemies-to-lovers romance.

Captive Prince is getting a solid five stars. I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest of the books!

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hoppyread's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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witheredflower's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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mikeymara's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I am definitely reading the next books and buying them to own. This book is not for everyone as it does involve a lot of topics related to sex slavery and rape. It is also not the best for people who want a quick romance, this is more of a slow burn in some ways.

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elskabee's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.5

How did I end up here? Why did I read this? And why did I find it so oddly compelling???

This is a book that defies classification. I can hardly call it it a romance based off the the first book, but it's not really about anything in particular? And yet I had to keep reading to find out what happens!

Damen is just stuck in shitty situation with no real way to do anything about it lol. He's kind of dumb and is somewhat self-admittedly a himbo in that he prefers the physical violence of his homeland over the poisonous psychological and political warfare of the Veretian court. He can't figure out pretty much anything until he's told or it becomes painfully obvious lol but I'm not that mad. I wish he had more of a personality as most of the time he felt a bit wooden.

Laurent on the other hand is fascinating as hell. He's a huge asshole and makes this book enemies to lovers in the extreme because he treats Damen (and really everyone he's not trying to politically seduce) terribly. Buuut as you grow to understand him and the shitty situation he is also in and you learn more about the inner workings of the court... well it's hard not to start to have a little tiny bit sympathy for him. Trying to understand why he behaves the way he does is one of the most intriguing parts of this book for me.

In terms of the overall worldbuilding, I wish the slave system was a bit more explained as it's left pretty vague. Like, are they actually slaves? How much choice do they have in the matter (aside from Damen)? Other than that I thought it was reasonably well done with explaining what needed to be explained but not ever info-dumping or giving extraneous information. The politics of the court was chef's kiss. I LOVE political intrigue and this is full of it and it's pretty well done imo. The author is good; there was stuff early on that I thought were questionable but the author made me come around on why those aspects were included.

Content Warnings

dazaireads's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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